Clrmamepro

[Aevans0001]

1.  What is the best program to use for dats?

2.  what are dats used for?

3.  Are there dats for images also?

4.  How reliable are dats?

5.  Do you have to certain sets to use certain dats?  for example if I download a NES set that is  TOSEC and want to convert it to no-intro, is that possible?

 

I have been put of emulation for about 10 years and now looking at updating everything.  I used dats and i think romcenter before.  I remember images were always a problem and the different naming conventions were an issue.

[pofo14]

18 hours ago, Aevans0001 said:

1.  What is the best program to use for dats?

I personally use CLRMamepro.  I fell like all ROM Managers take some getting used to, but this has the most "material" out there if you need help.  Once you get this one down - it is pretty simple to understand.  I spent the holiday's updating my sets, and a good amount of that time was just refreshing my understanding of DATs / Sets etc.  If you re-familiarize yourself with the concepts, using the tool becomes easier.  

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2.  what are dats used for?

The DATs are used to validate your ROMs against a "Set".  When I say "Set" I mean one of the published set of ROMs (No-Intro, MAME, ReDump, etc.).  

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3.  Are there dats for images also?

There are DATs for the main sets that include "Images" (assuming you mean disk based games) - ReDump, Trurip, TOSEC

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4.  How reliable are dats?

Not sure what you mean by "reliable" but they will reliably match your set of roms to the current known versions for a given Set/Version.  

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5.  Do you have to certain sets to use certain dats?  for example if I download a NES set that is  TOSEC and want to convert it to no-intro, is that possible?

I have been put of emulation for about 10 years and now looking at updating everything.  I used dats and i think romcenter before.  I remember images were always a problem and the different naming conventions were an issue.

I don't believe you can use a Rom Mgmt. tool to rebuild different sets of ROMs, because the different "sets" have different ways they dump roms.  Perhaps this is possible in some instances, more for arcade / cart based systems but I am not sure.  I have used the tools to "rebuild" sets, but that is more for updated say an old No-Into set to a new No-Intro set.  

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For what it is worth - I am switching over from HyperSpin to use Launchbox, and love it so far.  Part of that migration was to "simplify" my rom collection, and I settled on just using No-Into sets for cart based games, and ReDump for disk based games.  Therefore all my rom collections now are verified against the specific DAT files provided for those sets.  It has worked out well for me, and allowed me to clean up a lot of duplicate things I had.  

Edited January 2, 2018 by pofo14

[Aevans0001]

Thank you VERY much for all your help, POFO14!

 

I have always liked the no-intro sets, is the dat-o-matic still the best way to get the no intro dats?  I'm going to play around with them a little bit.

 

[pofo14]

Yes that is where I would go.  

[Aevans0001]

Ok, so now I have used clrmamepro to ensure that I have the full sets of my console games.  I basically go in create a profile, add rom path, then hit scan.  GOT that.  Now what else can I do.

 

1.  Can I sepperate the roms into north america and delete the rest, or create different subdirectories for each of the other regions?

2. When i go to update the set to the newest version, what do I do, and does it help me join in at lets say 50%?

etc.

what is rebuilder, merger etc?

[Replay]

I think it's probably best for you to just find a complete No-Intro post somewhere and download it. The way stuff is named and presented seems to be the best option for people that want to play the games.

 

If you just leech a full set than let Launchbox simply import only the region you're interested in. Don't worry about deleting stuff outright that you'll never play as it's a waste of time and you want to be 100% and seeding anyway. It makes joining in on the next post easier.

[Aevans0001]

Replay, I have done that now, but for future I would like to join in at a higher percentage.  With some of the updates, all they are is renames (which i understand I can do by using the scan feature.  I am just trying to learn more about clrmamepro

 

[Aevans0001]

Sorry guys, I answered my own question.  I looked for this originaly and couldn't find it...

 

 

[pofo14]

2 hours ago, Aevans0001 said:

Ok, so now I have used clrmamepro to ensure that I have the full sets of my console games.  I basically go in create a profile, add rom path, then hit scan.  GOT that.  Now what else can I do.

 

1.  Can I sepperate the roms into north america and delete the rest, or create different subdirectories for each of the other regions?

 

For the console games (assuming No-Intro) download the P/Clone XML version for dat-o-matic. Then you can select the 1G1R option in clrmamapro (1 game 1 region) option and separate those Roma by region.  I had a tutorial but don’t have the link now  I’ll post it later if I can find it.  But if you google “clrmamepro 1G1R” you should find what u need.

2. When i go to update the set to the newest version, what do I do, and does it help me join in at lets say 50%?

Yes - when a new set comes out. Download the new dat- run it through the scanner with the fix options. It will rename anything u have that got renamed. Then u should join at a good percentage. 

2 hours ago, Aevans0001 said:

etc.

what is rebuilder, merger etc?

Rebuilder comes into play for updating the MAME sets. Looks like you found a tutorial on that.